If all goes well, you will complete all of the stages, road sections, and service halts without too much drama, and will make it to the final time control.

If things don't go well, you may end up like this...

If you crash and you are both okay, make sure you use your red warning triangle to alert the following rally cars, and make sure you display your "OK" sign. If one of you is hurt, you should use your "RED CROSS" board to get the attention of a following car, and that car's crew will then notify the organizers at the next radio location or at the end of the stage.

If you crash and are both unable to get out of the car, the organizers will know that something has happened when you don't arrive at the next check point. All of the emergency procedures will be detailed in the regulations, and most rallies will expect novice crews to attend a meeting prior to the rally start to explain these.

If you have to retire because you crash the car, or due to a mechanical problem, MAKE SURE YOU LET THE ORGANIZERS KNOW! There is nothing more frustrating for the organizers than having to search a rally stage for a car that has "disappeared". If you retire, you should fill in an incident sheet (usually a page is provided in the Road Book) and hand this in at the nearest time control or at the rally HQ.

Hopefully you manage to keep things "shiny side up" and get to the final control of the rally. If you do, and if you also avoided any penalties along the way, you and your driver should be feeling pretty good, and deservedly so. Most people will never understand the effort that you and your team put in to make your brief celebration possible, but every rally crew in the world would understand the significance, so you just earned a small amount of respect from each and every one of them. Enjoy the moment!

TIP
Some rallies will allow for penalty-free early arrival at the final time control. It is up to the co driver to make sure the time written on the time card is the SCHEDULED TIME and not the actual time!

TIP
If you retire early on some rallies you may be able to rejoin the rally later. in fact, some long rallies allow for this by creating a separate rally for those rejoining crews. Usually you have to formally retire from the main rally, and make a request to rejoin to the event Steward. If your car was damaged and then repaired you may be asked to pass another technical inspection.

TIP
Rarely you can be excluded from a rally by being OTL (over time limit) due to a problem such as being stuck in a ditch, but can find yourself reinstated because the particular stage times are "scrubbed" because of an unrelated event. For example if a car running behind you spins and blocks the stage making it impassible for the following cars. Those cars crews should protest the situation and if the stage is cancelled you would also benefit even though the problem happened after you drove into the ditch.

TIP
Some crews may try to create the above scenario if they are stuck in a ditch...............and now let's talk about advanced co driving.........